


Black Sheep

by f-ing-ruthless-baz (f_ing_ruthless_baz)



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, New York, No Spoilers for Book 2: Wayward Son, Post-Book 1: Carry On, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-24 06:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21333967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/f_ing_ruthless_baz/pseuds/f-ing-ruthless-baz
Summary: “What’s her name?”“Whomst?” He’s been drinking. Of course.“The girl who suddenly started appearing in your Instagram posts a few weeks ago,” I say. I don’t want to fight him on this tonight. (This morning, I guess.) “I assume she will no longer be appearing in them?”“Oof. Niall. You’re so clever,” he says. “You should have been top of the class at Watford, instead of that twat.”I snort a laugh, despite myself. “That twat was your best friend.”Dev makes a noise akin topffffpfhhhthtttthh!“He was my cousin. You were my best friend, you dick.”“Stop, you’re making me blush.”“Anyway,” he says after an extra long beat, “her name’s not important.”It's been over a year since Dev and Niall left Watford--and Dev left England altogether. Since he left Niall behind.
Relationships: Dev/Niall (Simon Snow)
Comments: 51
Kudos: 193





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I was listening to the song ["Black Sheep" by Metric](https://open.spotify.com/track/72hSmnleYTiiOo23q8ZJIS?si=85kzTqQ2T6u_TeSyJHTiEA) a lot--as one does--around the same time that I started thinking I might like to try my hand at writing a DeNiall fic. And the line, _"I knew you when our common goal was waiting for the world to end,"_ sort of resonated with my thoughts. Post-Watford. Dev and Niall--though maybe mostly Dev--are pissed at Baz for "abandoning" them and wasting their childhoods. Now they don't know what to do with themselves.
> 
> And then the rest of the idea for this fic just sort of came tumbling out, and here we are.
> 
> As usual, my thanks go to the Circle of Tears, [The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Honeyed_Hufflepuff) and [soultoast](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soultoast), and to my biggest enabler, [giishu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/giishu), for helping me get through this and reassuring me it's okay. 😅
> 
> I'd also like to send my appreciation to [tbazzsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artescapri/pseuds/tbazzsnow) and [BasicBathsheba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BasicBathsheba) for writing some of my favourite DeNiall-centric fanfics. They certainly opened my eyes to the wonderful world of possibility in writing a minor character ship. (It's very liberating.)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _‘I go where you go.’_ That was the promise we made each other, years ago. _Well here I am, Dev. I’m where you are. Now what?_
> 
> I don’t think he knows, either.

“Good morning, _darling_.”

I should have expected this.

“Dev—” My voice splinters in my throat; I’m not yet fully awake as I hold the phone to my ear. “Do you have any fucking idea what time it is here?”

“It’s morning,” Dev says, and I can practically hear him smirking.

“Very, _very_ early morning.” I press my thumb between my eyebrows, to stave off the impending headache, and let out a sigh. “What’s her name?”

“_Whomst_?” He’s been drinking. Of course.

“The girl who suddenly started appearing in your Instagram posts a few weeks ago,” I say. I don’t want to fight him on this tonight. (This morning, I guess.) “I assume she will no longer be appearing in them?”

“Oof. Niall. You’re so clever,” he says. “You should have been top of the class at Watford, instead of that twat.”

I snort a laugh, despite myself. “That twat was your best friend.”

Dev makes a noise akin to _pffffpfhhhthtttthh!_ “He was my cousin. _You_ were my best friend, you dick.”

“Stop, you’re making me blush.”

“Anyway,” he says after an extra long beat, “her name’s not important.”

“Do you think it’s that kind of attitude that made her leave you?” I say. It’s a low blow, I know that. But I’m so tired.

I’m tired of hardly hearing from him for weeks—or even months—at a time. Not until whichever girl he’s been seeing has dropped him, and I have to pick up the pieces. It’s not even that I mind. It would just be a lot easier to put him back together if he were here.

I try to prepare myself, nowadays. When it looks like he’s started dating someone new. (I’m the only one from his old life who knows his Instagram handle. Otherwise his parents might catch on that the money they send him isn’t going to his tuition.)

He laughs half-heartedly, nonetheless.

“Maybe this is a sign you should move back,” I add. “These American girls are just trouble.”

“She was Canadian.”

“That’s even worse.”

He laughs for real this time. “I forgot how funny you are.”

I snort again. “Fuck you.”

I can hear him moving around on the other end of the line—it sounds like he just bumped into something and is swearing under his breath—until he seems settled once again.

“You should come visit,” he says. His voice is small, now. Like he wants to be able to take it back if it doesn’t go over well. Claim it was just a really strange cough.

_You should come home_. That’s what I want to say. What I wish I could say. What I should say.

But I don’t. I can’t.

“Yeah.” I think I’m whispering now. _I’m just clearing my throat._ “That’d be good.”

* * *

Eight hours in a steel tube, hurtling through the air with a bunch of grumpy passengers, including at least two very miserable infants, and a man next to me hacking up a lung for the entire trip. Followed by a problem with the baggage carousel, where my luggage almost gets chewed up by a jam on the conveyor belt. I’ve never been a fan of air travel, but this is a whole new level of awful.

I hate America already. (Or maybe I just hate New York.)

Dev offered to meet me at the airport. I insisted I’d be fine on my own, but he insisted I was a dickhead. I couldn’t argue with that.

I feel a pull in my gut when I see him there, after baggage claim. I just don’t know which way it’s pulling.

I think about running. I’m at the airport, I could go anywhere. I could get as far away from here as possible.

And I think about running with him. Taking him with me, as far away from here as possible.

_‘I go where you go.’_ That was the promise we made each other, years ago. _Well here I am, Dev. I’m where you are. Now what?_

I don’t think he knows, either.

He’s staring at me like I’m some sort of apparition. Like he can’t believe I’m real. Like he hoped I wouldn’t actually show…

I’m still walking towards him, though. It’s inevitable; I was always going to go to him. It’s the Crucible all over again.

I grip the handle of my suitcase firmly, as my palm sweats around it. A hint of a smile spreads across his face when I get closer, but I feel paralyzed. I don’t know the protocol for seeing your best friend for the first time in over a year—the one you lived with for eight years, the one you grew up with, the one who left you behind. What do we do? What do we say?

“Hey,” he says once I stop in front of him. (I guess that’s what we say.)

I nod in response. “Hey.”

“Um.” He lifts his arms towards me, and then pauses. I think he wants to hug me, but the carry-on bag slung over my shoulder seems to have tripped him up. He tries to angle his arms to accommodate it.

Neither of us are huggers, so I don’t know where he got it in his head that this was a good idea. I have to hunch forward because of the height difference—he went for a _one-up, one-down_ with his arms. It’s uncomfortable and awkward, but I let it happen anyway because it feels… important.

It feels like an apology. But Dev doesn’t do apologies.

Then again, I thought Dev didn’t do hugs.

“Right,” he says, giving me a hard clap on the back before letting go. “Now that’s out of the way…”

He reaches up and snatches my glasses right off my face so he can try them on. “When the fuck did you get these?”

“A few months ago,” I answer as I try to take them back.

“Crowley, can you even see a thing without these?” He squints as he looks around to test them out, but I manage to grab them from him while he’s distracted.

“It’s not that bad,” I say. “All those years of spelling my eyes blue affected their focus, that’s all.”

“I told you it was a shitty use of magic. Your eyes are fine the way they are.”

“Such a boring colour, though.” I put my glasses back on and then immediately take them off to wipe away the smudges he left.

“Niall, your eye colour is not boring,” he says seriously, patting me on the shoulder. “_You’re_ boring.”

“Thanks.”

My glasses still aren’t clean, by any means, but they’re as clean as I’m going to get them with the bottom of my t-shirt.

“Shall we?” he says, and reaches for the handle of my suitcase at the same time I do. We dance clumsily around each other, trying to figure who should take it. We’re out of sync.

It’s never been like this.

He takes the suitcase. And I let him. Because nothing makes sense anymore.

* * *

When Dev takes me to his flat, the first thing I ask is, _“_Where’s the rest of it?”

“It’s a bachelor apartment,” he says, dropping his keys on the kitchen counter, on top of a precarious pile of unopened mail. He kicks a pair of trousers out of the way so he can wheel my suitcase across the room. (Because that’s what it is. A room.)

“Is it a requirement for bachelors to live in such squalor?” I ask, and he gives me a sarcastic smile.

“No, that’s all me.”

“You have _magic_.” I try to count how many half-empty cups of water I can find, littered about, but I lose track after seven. “You could spell everything tidy. Or cast a **Bigger on the inside**, for fuck’s sake.”

Dev just shrugs and puts the kettle on.

I hover near the door, like I’m waiting for permission to enter properly. As if I didn’t just walk into his room without knocking all the time in the summers. As if I didn’t _share_ a room with him for years. As if I don’t know how to be in the same space as him.

I guess I don’t, anymore.

He eventually clears a bit of rubbish off the sofa and tells me to sit while he makes tea. Tea will make everything better.

* * *

The electric kettles here take forever to boil.

* * *

Dev and I don’t really talk, most of the time.

We say words, of course. Certain situations draw out fewer words than others, yes, but we almost always have _some_ words. Not necessarily the right words. But words, nevertheless.

Over tea, Dev tells me, animatedly, what he’s been up to for the past year, filling in the gaps of what I could glean from his social media, more or less—and I’m certain none of this is what he tells his family.

It took a lot of negotiating with his parents to let him live here. On their money, no less. They threatened to cut him off and he threatened to marry an American Normal and never return, if they did. It was all very scandalous back home, and caused a bit of a stir among the Old Families. I didn’t give a shit about that.

_“I go where you go.”_ Unless you leave without me. Fucking prick.

I don’t tell anyone what he’s really up to over here, though. Partly because I don’t entirely know, myself. Even after he explained it to me. (I gather he has some sort of _job_, that possibly involves selling magically counterfeited IDs to teenagers, but I’m not sure.) (That may have been a joke, actually.)

He suggests we go out tonight, but I remind him that I’m still five hours ahead, and he’d have to drag my lifeless body back to his flat before midnight.

“You think I couldn’t carry you myself, you weedy fuck?” he says, sitting tall and puffing out his chest. “You may have the height advantage, but we all know I’ve got the brawn.”

I let out an exasperated laugh. “Not the point, mate.”

“Fine.” He slumps back against the sofa. “We’ll go out tomorrow.”

“Sure,” I say. I’m too tired to argue now.

I manage to stay awake until nearly eleven, which is rather impressive for me, considering the time difference. But I can no longer keep my eyelids from drooping as I listen to Dev talk about something—No, not talk. _Say words _about something.

“Hey.” He gives my arm a nudge, which jostles me awake.

I’m resting against the sofa cushions with my head tilted towards him, and when I open my eyes to the dimly lit room, I see he’s mirroring my position. I try to come up with why I find that comforting, but the fog of impending sleep is too thick.

I hum lazily in response and let my eyes drift shut again.

He smacks me in the arm this time, and I start unexpectedly. “We should go to bed. You’re completely out of it.”

“Yeah, good…”

“_Niall_,” he says. He sounds annoyed with me. I don’t mind it. “You have to _get up_.”

He stands in front of me and pulls me up, until I’m teetering on my feet next to him. I instinctively put my arms around his shoulders to regain my balance, and he watches me like it’s all terribly hilarious. I make a mental note to come up with a clever remark for next time. I’m exhausted.

“Go get yourself ready, and I’ll make the bed,” he says, pushing me away, towards my luggage.

I tear through my suitcase for my toothbrush and pyjamas while he tears the cushions off of the sofa behind me. I don’t ask why. I don’t care why. _I just want to sleep_.

I change in the bathroom—it’s small and cramped, like the rest of the flat—and when I return, it all makes sense.

“That’s your bed,” I state.

“Well spotted.” He casts **You’ve made your bed, now lie in it**, and the bedclothes he’d dumped on top of the sofa-turned-bed magically fit themselves over it.

I scan the room curiously. “Where do I sleep, then?”

“You, sir, have been granted the honour of sharing my bed with me,” he says, presenting the bed to me like it’s a prize on a game show. “Usually a guy has to buy me a drink first, but I’ll make an exception for you.”

“I appreciate it, thank you,” I say as I remove my glasses and place them on the table where I left my mobile. I flop onto the bed, face first. “Crowley, this mattress is terrible.”

“That it is, Niall,” he replies as he heads for the bathroom. “That it is.”

Although I’m tempted to just fall asleep on top of the covers so I don’t have to move, I can’t sleep well without the weight of something on top of me. I eventually manage to turn over and get under the blankets, though I have to punch a couple of lumps out of the pillow before I can get comfortable.

I can tell when Dev comes out of the bathroom, but I don’t bother opening my eyes until I hear rustling next to the other side of the bed. He’s taking off his trousers, like I’m not even here.

We’ve changed clothes in the same room, obviously. There wasn’t much of a choice at Watford—not everyone had their own fucking ensuite. But we’d usually keep our backs to each other and hide behind our wardrobes as much as possible.

I guess he’s run out of fucks to give, and honestly, I don’t blame him.

“Haven’t you heard of pyjamas?” I say when he climbs into bed next to me.

“Haven’t you heard of minding your own fucking business?” he says, but there’s no malice in it.

He spells off the lamp in the corner, but soft light from the street filters in through the slats in the window blind. It’s enough for me to make out his backlit profile when I look over at him, but not much else.

There was this game—sort of—that we used to play, back at Watford. When we were in our beds, and the lights were off, and we were waiting for sleep to take us. _‘What are you thinking about?’_ we’d ask each other. Sometimes it was a way to vent at the end of a stressful day. Sometimes it was just something funny to do while we walked the tight-rope between consciousness and dreamland. Sometimes it felt like we were discovering big truths about the universe. (Other teenagers get high; we just got sleepy.)

_‘What are you thinking about?’_ I want to ask him now. I want to know what’s making his brow crease like that. I want to know what’s making his lip curl up like that. I want to know—

“What are you thinking about?” he asks. He’s speaking softly now. We’re close enough that he can.

“Watford,” I say. It’s the truth, technically.

He huffs a laugh. “Watford was a shitshow.”

“It wasn’t all bad.”

“I guess not,” he says, turning his head to face me. His features are all grey and blurry to me. “We found ways to have fun, once in a while.”

“Yeah.” I don’t tell him that our years at Watford were the best time of my life. That I feel sick, sometimes, when I think about how those days are over. “We were good at that.”

I roll away from him, onto my side and tell him goodnight.

I don’t really want to know what he’s thinking now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I forgot how much I missed this, though. Falling asleep to the rhythm of someone else’s breath. Knowing someone’s here with me. That if a murderer broke in, there’s only a fifty-fifty chance they would kill me first.

Sunlight is cutting across the floorboards in thin streaks when I wake up, some even crawling up onto the bed. I wouldn’t normally be awake this early, but one of the streaks got me in the eye. Jet lag probably didn’t help.

I push myself up to a sitting position at the head of the bed—or the sofa, I suppose—and reach for my glasses. Dev still seems fast asleep, despite the beam of light striping the side of his face. He was always pretty good at sleeping through anything. Including his alarm. (On more than one occasion, I had to put his alarm clock right next to his ear just to wake him.) (He would threaten to throw it at me, but he’d always miss by a fairly large margin. It didn’t even invoke the Anathema; I don’t think he was actually trying to hit me.)

I forgot how much I missed this, though. Falling asleep to the rhythm of someone else’s breath. Knowing someone’s here with me. That if a murderer broke in, there’s only a fifty-fifty chance they would kill me first.

I thought I was going to have that a bit longer. We were going to room together at uni, since we already knew each other’s quirks and terrible habits. Like the way Dev clips his fingernails almost every single day, because if he sees even a millimetre of white, he’ll chew it off. Or the way I absolutely lose my shit every time I hear those fucking nail clippers.

I’d rather lose my shit around him than anyone else.

We were going to do it all together. _‘I go where you go.’_

I hate that I don’t completely hate him for leaving me behind, the way he did. For changing the plan at the last minute. For repeatedly cutting me out of the loop until he needed someone to reassure him that everything will be okay. And I hate that I always do.

I also hate the way he’s let his hair grow out on top. It’s so long that some flops down into his eyes when he moves his head. He’s constantly pushing it back during the day, and it always falls down again. It’s distracting, every time he rakes his hand through it. He’s almost as bad as Baz, honestly. _We get it; you have nice hair. Get over yourself._

It’s fallen over one of his eyes right now, while he sleeps, and I consider pushing it out of the way for him. I’m glad I don’t, though, because his eyes are suddenly open and he’s staring up at me.

“What are you looking at, creep?” he says gruffly as he rolls onto his back.

“Your hair is stupid,” I tell him.

The corners of his eyes crinkle with laughter and he brushes the hair off his face, leaving his hand tangled in it while he yawns. “How long have you been up?” he asks, through the tail end of his yawn.

_A while._ “Not long.”

“Right, well.” He slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits up, pushing the heels of his hands against his eyes and groaning loudly. His whole morning ritual is such a painful production. “I’m gonna go piss out about nine cups of tea from last night, and then we can go and get you some coffee.”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Fine, we can go and get _me_ some coffee, then,” he says as he plods over to the bathroom. “Such a pedantic little shit.”

* * *

I’ve started counting the number of times Dev sweeps his hair out of his face. He did it four times just while ordering his coffee. It wasn’t even a lengthy interaction—the barista already seemed to know his usual. They just had a brief chat while Dev paid.

I wasn’t focused on their conversation, though. I was busy counting. Four—the number of times Dev pushed his hair back, in that casual-yet-obviously-calculated way. Two—the number of times the barista self-consciously adjusted his own glasses. Three—the number of times Dev made him laugh.

I felt like I’d slipped into an alternate dimension where Dev is _sociable_, and I didn’t care for it.

Sitting across from him at a small table in the corner, now, sipping my dreadful cup of tea, I consider just telling him. _‘I’m worried about you, mate, and I think you need to come home_._’_

I can’t do that, though. One time he hung up on me for even suggesting it. The first time I’d heard from him in over a month, and he fucking hung up on me. He wouldn’t answer my texts for three more weeks. He’s an overdramatic arsehole and I don’t know why I put up with him.

He pushes his hair back again, but this time I think it’s absent-minded. He’s staring into his mug of coffee, lost in thought, his thick eyebrows pinching together in the middle. I don’t like this. I don’t like when he’s not here with me.

“What are you thinking about?” I ask quietly, hesitantly. It’s not how the game works, I know. The unspoken rule number one is, _You don’t ask in the light of day_.

“Hmm?” He blinks at me for a second while he mentally shifts gears. “Oh, uh. I dunno. Nothing important, I guess.”

I nod as I take another sip of my tea—_Crowley_, it’s disgusting—and glance over towards the counter. The barista’s just chatting with his coworker. It’s not very busy right now, but still. Seems unprofessional.

“So, do you come here often?” I ask, turning my attention back to Dev.

“Is that a really lame pick-up line?” he says with a laugh.

“Funny,” I say impassively. “No, I just mean, they seem to know you here—_That guy _seemed to know you.”

He takes a drink of his latte. “I guess I’m here most days, yeah.”

“I see.” I nod again. “Cool.”

I don’t ask him why he lives in such a shitty flat if he can afford a latte every day. I’m pretty sure it’s none of my business.

And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.

* * *

When Britney Spears’ “Toxic” comes on, I can’t tell if the girls excitedly getting up to dance actually like the song, or if they just think it’s fun in an ironic way. I kind of hope it’s the former; more people need to legitimately enjoy things instead of painting everything they do with seven layers of sarcasm.

Not that I ever follow my own advice.

Dev had to spell my ID to get me in here, tonight, since I’m a few months shy of twenty-one. (I could have spelled it myself, but he claimed he’d perfected his method. He wouldn’t even let me watch him do it.) (_“I can’t just go sharing industry secrets left and right,”_ he said. I’m still not sure if he was joking or not.)

_“I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that you’re toxic?”_

Some of the people at a nearby table have started singing along. They look like drama students. One of the girls is really hamming it up, and her friend next to her is cackling over her drink.

Dev waggles his eyebrows at me when I look back at him, and I roll my eyes.

“What?” I say, raising my pint glass to take a sip.

He grins deviously. “If you need to use my flat tonight, just say the word.”

“Of course I need your flat. Where else am I gonna sleep?” I set my glass on the table again and swipe my thumb through some of the condensation on the side. I briefly consider making a pattern in it, but instead I wipe my hand on my jeans.

“_Niall_,” he says in a patronizing tone. He gives me a meaningful look—but I’m unsure what the meaning is. “I meant, if you need to use the flat because you make a new _friend_…” His eyes cut over to the girls at the next table.

_I’m not trying to make any friends,_ I think. And then it clicks.

“Crowley, Dev,” I hiss, leaning over the table so I can keep my voice low. “I’m not about to _cop off_ with someone I don’t even know!”

He looks about ready to erupt with laughter if I say another word.

“Fair enough, mate,” he says with a nod, after reining himself in.

I huff and sit back in my chair, staring at my glass. It’s still nearly full; I don’t really like beer, but it seemed like an innocuous choice.

“Er, so, do you—” I say as I run my thumb over the side of the glass again. “Do you usually, um. _Make new friends_, here?”

“Sometimes.” He shrugs and takes a pull from his own glass. His nonchalance is unnerving.

Dev’s always been the more emotional one. Anger and joy and sadness and love—he felt those more strongly than I ever could. I didn’t really envy that about him, but I did admire it.

When we were sixteen, and his girlfriend of barely a month broke up with him, he was shattered. He thought no one would ever love him, and while I didn’t really see why that mattered—especially at _sixteen_—I told him that was ridiculous. Of course someone would love him. Anyone who knew him like I knew him would.

But that takes time. You have to fight your way in, and he doesn’t make it easy.

I like that about him. It felt like I _earned_ his friendship. Sure, the Crucible cast us together, but it took months of persistently telling him dumb jokes before he let me hear his snort-laugh. The one where he doesn’t hold back. It’s obnoxious and wonderful.

Trying to picture him bringing one of these girls home with him—someone he’s never met before, someone who’s never seen his _real_ smile, the dorky one he hates—doesn’t sit well with me. It’s not that there’s anything _wrong_ with these girls, exactly. They’re… pleasant-looking, I guess. I mean, they just look like anyone else. They could be literally anyone else.

_Why would Dev choose just anyone?_

“Well, sorry if I’m getting in your way, then,” I mutter.

“You’re not in the way, you numpty,” he says, but then he turns his focus to something past my head and smirks.

“What are—” I glance over my shoulder to see what’s caught his eye and find a guy at the bar looking over at us. “Do you know him?” I ask when I return my attention to Dev.

“Not yet,” he says, and downs the rest of his pint. He pushes up from his seat and pats me on the shoulder a couple times as he passes. “I’ll get us another round.”

He doesn’t even give me a chance to decline—I’ve still got plenty to drink in front of me—but I turn and watch him walk up to the guy at the bar. Something he says makes the guy laugh, and I hate it. _I’m_ the one who gets Dev’s jokes. I’m the one he opens up to. I’m the one who’s earned it.

It’s not until I see Dev rake his hair back for the third time that the jealousy and rage building in my stomach makes way for the sinking feeling of impending doom.

I think Dev’s _flirting_ with him.

Crowley, I had no idea Dev even knew _how_ to flirt. (I certainly don’t.)

There are too many factors to try and process right now. The most salient thing to me, at this moment, is that I feel dizzy and need to get out of here. Too many people, not enough oxygen.

I need to leave, and Dev needs to come with me. _‘I go where you go.’_ We made that pact together. It applies to both of us.

I nearly knock the table over when I stand, but thankfully only a little beer sloshes out of the glass.

Dev looks confused when I march up to him and tell him we have to go. “No, it’s cool,” he says, as he fishes his keys out of his pocket and hands them to me. “You go ahead. I’m gonna stay and chat with—” He frowns curiously at the guy with him. “What’s your name?”

“Uh, it’s Nate—”

“Fuck that!” I snap, grabbing Dev by the arm. “You’re coming with me. I need you more than—than _Nate_ does.” I glare at the other guy. “Who even are you, anyway?”

“Jesus, Niall,” Dev says. (He spends too much time around Normals these days.) “Just chill out.”

“Please, can we just go?” I say through my teeth as I grip his forearm tighter. I think it surprises him; he looks at me like he only just realized I’m here. Or maybe he only just realized that I’m being serious.

“Okay, yeah.” He nods and stares at me a moment longer. I think he’s trying to _solve_ me, but I know that’s a hopeless endeavour. “Yeah, let’s go.”

He apologizes to Nate and we head out. I don’t let go of his arm until we’re outside, and even then, I stick to his side as we walk. I’m not letting him get away from me again.

* * *

I’m going to suffocate to death in Dev’s infinitesimal apartment. The walls are too close together. _How does he live like this?_

“Hey,” he says quietly, startling me when he comes up and taps me on the back. “You gonna sit?”

I’ve just been standing in the middle of the room since we got in. I’m too wound up to sit still and too exhausted to move.

Dev guides me to the sofa and I collapse backwards onto it. (I’m not looking forward to when I’ll have to get up so he can convert it.) He takes a seat next to me, but neither of us says anything for a while. I don’t even know what there is to say…

“So, what—” he begins, but I accidentally cut him off by asking, at the same time, _“Are you gay?”_

I’m not sure what possessed me to ask. And I know I have no right to feel like he owes me this information. I don’t even care about the answer. It doesn’t matter to me if he’s gay or straight; all I care is that he’s Dev. But I don’t like feeling that there’s _so much_ I don’t know about him.

I don’t like any of this.

“No…” he says, staring down at the floor in front of him.

“So, you weren’t flirting with that guy at the bar?”

“No, I was.”

“Oh.” I wait for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. “Are you bi, then?”

He drops his head back against the sofa cushion behind him with a noisy exhale. “I mean, I guess I’m just not that picky.”

“_‘Just not that picky?’_ What does that even mean?” I slide down in my seat until I can rest my head on the back of the sofa too. “How can you not be picky about who you date?”

“I’m not picky about their _gender_,” he says. “Hot is hot, doesn’t matter.”

I turn my head to look at him, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “You choose to go out with people because they’re _good-looking_?” I ask. “Like, that’s the only criterion?”

“Maybe not the _only_. But it’s a factor, yeah.”

“It just seems like a meaningless way to gauge whether you’re compatible with someone.”

“Perhaps. But it’s a good way to gauge if you want to shag them.”

“_Is it?_”

Dev narrows his eyes at me so intensely I have to look away. “Niall, are you still a virgin?” he asks all of a sudden, and with far too much delight. “Are you _saving_ yourself?”

“Fuck off,” I grumble, and roll my head the other way. He elbows me in the arm.

“Hey, I’m kidding, relax,” he says. “I’m not here to _prude-shame_ you.”

“Oh, for fuck’s—”

“It’s _fiiiine_, mate. No judgment here.”

I pointedly don’t look back at him. “Fine.”

It feels like Spin the Bottle in fifth year all over again—Dev strong-armed me into playing and I chickened out when it was my turn.

_“What’s the problem?”_ he asked after following me out of the room. _“Sophie’s pretty cute, right?”_

_“I don’t know, maybe!”_ I snapped at him. _“But I still don’t want to do it, so just—Just drop it, please!”_

He would try to push me out of my comfort zone a lot, over the years, but he’d always lay off when I asked. It was something I could count on.

“Right, well,” he says. He slaps his hands on his knees and stands, reaching down to pull me up by the arm. “Get your bony arse out of the way, I need to fold out the bed.”

* * *

Once in a while I imagine what my life would be like if Dev hadn’t moved to New York. If he’d stayed in England, with me. If we’d gone to school together and roomed together and just lived our fucking lives together.

I don’t like imagining it, actually. Because the Dev I imagine isn’t really Dev—he’s just a fabrication who does whatever I want him to. He doesn’t think the way Dev thinks, he thinks the way I _want_ Dev to think. He thinks the way I think.

I used to wish for that, sometimes. That I could make him think like I do. I could have saved him a lot of heartbreak and failure, if he’d just acted less like Dev and more like me. Things could have been easier for him.

But I would have hated him.

I need Dev to be himself. I need him to push me and tease me and tell me when I get tunnel vision about stuff. I need him to pull me out of my head. I need him.

We’re good for each other. If we lived together, I’d make sure the flat never ended up looking like _this_—there’s a small mountain of black socks next to a dresser on the other side of the room, and I have no idea if they’re clean or dirty, for instance. And he’d make sure I didn’t spend the entire day holed up in my room. Symbiosis.

Besides, he’s fun to be around. At least when he’s not showing off for other people. When he lets out his real smile and his snorty laugh. When he’s just being.

When he’s not thousands of miles away.

“You should come home,” I say in the middle of an episode of _Stranger Things_. (We’ve watched quite a few over the last few nights, once he realized I had no interest in going out or meeting new people.)

He eyes me warily. “I am home,” he says.

“You know what I mean.” I reach out and pause the show on his laptop when he pretends to ignore me. “You don’t belong here, Dev.”

“No? Where do I belong then?” he says, folding his arms over his chest. “Because I certainly don’t belong over there.”

“Of course you belong there! Your whole family’s there.”

“Fuck ‘em.”

“_I’m_ there.”

He glares at me sideways, and I’m just waiting for him to say, _fuck you, too_. “That’s not my problem.”

“You ditched _me_, remember?” I say, a hostility creeping into my voice that I know won’t win me his favour. But I can’t help it. “I’m not the one who went off and snogged the Chosen One! I didn’t abandon you. You were supposed to be my best friend, but you just ran off without me!”

“Oh, like you wouldn’t have done the same thing, if you’d had the balls,” he says. “I’m sorry that I’m not afraid to go do things on my own. I didn’t think I needed your permission to live my life.”

“But we made a pact,” I say, which is about the most pathetic thing I could have said.

He rolls his eyes. “That was in sixth year.”

“So?”

“So, that was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before everything!” he says, giving me a look like I should know what he means.

“What—What are you talking about?”

His expression grows colder and he turns his attention back to his computer. “Forget it,” he says as he leans forward, but I grab his wrist before he can press play.

“Just tell me,” I ask, practically begging. “What changed?”

He stares at me a moment before dropping his head, and tugs his wrist free of my grasp. “You did,” he says bitterly.

And then he leaves.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m not good at causing a fuss. I’m not good at deciding that things need to be done and then doing them, no matter what it takes. I couldn’t even come to New York to try and drag my best friend home until he invited me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates? In one day? It's more likely than you think. (Leaving the story unfinished was stressing me out, heh.) (But I've never had complaints about double-update days.)
> 
> I am beyond thrilled that some people seem to really enjoy this story so far, and I really hope this final chapter doesn't disappoint.

One time at Watford—seventh year, I think—Dev told me I wasn’t very proactive. I wasn’t sure what made him such an expert on the matter, considering both of us just did whatever Baz told us to. It was easier than causing a fuss.

Maybe that’s what he meant. I’m not good at causing a fuss. I’m not good at deciding that things need to be done and then doing them, no matter what it takes. I couldn’t even come to New York to try and drag my best friend home until he invited me.

But that’s just courtesy, isn’t it?

I wait for other people to do things and then react to them. It’s simpler that way. I’m less likely to do something wrong.

Trying to make Dev talk about coming home was clearly the wrong thing to do. I wasn’t following his lead at all, and it backfired.

This whole thing is wrong.

I didn’t go after him when he left. I didn’t see the point; I wasn’t going to change his mind. I know I don’t have that power. I know he doesn’t care what I think.

A couple hours passed, and I started to worry that maybe he wouldn’t come back. That he couldn’t stand the sight of me any longer, and was waiting for me to fuck off before he returned.

And then I started to worry that something happened to him. (Doesn’t everyone have a gun over here? How is that safe?)

He doesn’t respond to any of my texts—he just shows up after midnight, without warning, tipsy and unwound.

“What the fuck?” I say, standing when I see him come in. “What was that for?”

He stares at me a moment, like he’s struggling to focus. “What was… What?”

“Rather than have a difficult conversation, you just ran off without a word,” I tell him. “Which I guess I should have expected from you, since that’s what you do now. You run away when things get uncomfortable.”

“You’re such a fucking nerd,” he mumbles, staggering toward the bathroom. He doesn’t sound angry, though. I think he’s laughing.

I make the bed while he’s in there, because I’m so tired. I’m tired of talking. I’m tired of not talking. I’m tired of waiting, of hoping, of wasting my life.

I go home in two days. And I’m definitely going back alone.

By the time Dev gets out, I’ve almost finished getting the bed ready, and he sits heavily on the end of it to start picking at the laces on his high-tops. He swears under his breath when they tangle into a knot, and tugs at the ends.

I don’t ask why he doesn’t just spell them—I’m not sure he could cast anything right now, anyway—and my wand is over by the other side of the bed (I’m terrible at keeping it handy, especially since leaving Watford), so I crouch down to start untangling his laces for him. I just want this day to be over.

“You don’t have to do that,” he mutters.

I elbow his arms out of the way so I can work on the mess he’s made of the laces. “Crowley, what did you do to these?” I say, and he sits up, laughing.

“I am very talented,” he says as he starts petting my head languorously.

I stop and look up at him as he drags his fingers through my hair. I have no idea what he’s doing, but I don’t ask him. I don’t think he knows, either.

I’m pathetic, though. I wait up half the night for him to return—and then wait on him hand and foot when he does—and let him treat me like a fucking _dog_ just because the alternative seems unbearable. Because at least I have his attention now. Because he’s _here_.

And because his nails are gently scraping against my scalp now and it feels _good_.

I don’t know when I closed my eyes, but I open them again when he tells me my hair’s gotten long. It’s enough to snap me out of whatever trance he put me in, and I finish getting his laces untied quickly before shutting myself in the bathroom.

I take an extra long time brushing my teeth, hoping he’ll already be passed out in the bed when I get back out. He’s not.

He’s in the bed, yes, but the light in the corner is enough for me to see that he’s staring right at me. Like something about me is amusing. (Doubtful.)

“Hey,” he says quietly, rolling to face me when I get in next to him. He’s too far over on my side; I have to nudge him with my arm to make room.

“I’m still angry with you,” I say, though I’m not entirely sure that’s true. But I am _something_.

He crowds in towards me when I turn my back to him. “I didn’t think you wanted to go out,” he says against the base of my neck.

“I’m not angry that you went out without me, I’m angry that you went out to avoid talking to me.” I shouldn’t have to explain this. He should just get it.

“‘M sorry,” he says quietly, combing his hand through my hair again. I don’t stop him. “I had to get out. I was gonna say something stupid.”

I’ve never felt so relaxed and so anxious at the same time. “What were you gonna say?”

“I can’t tell you, it’s a secret,” he whispers as he continues stroking my hair back. Maybe he’s trying to calm me. (It’s not _not_ working.)

“When did we start keeping secrets from each other?” I say absently.

He stops and pulls his arm in, curling up against my back to sleep. “A long time ago, I think.”

* * *

The kettles in this country are absolute shit. (Yes, I know it’s really the electric current, but still.)

Typically I wouldn’t waste my magic on something as menial as boiling water, but America is testing my patience. My wand is over by the sofa, though—near where Dev’s sitting—and I don’t particularly want to go get it now…

Dev hasn’t said much since he woke up this morning. Neither have I, for that matter. Busying myself with making tea seems like the only thing I can do to avoid sitting next to him in unbearable silence—

“Niall,” he says from his seat on the sofa, startling me into facing him. “I can’t go back to England.”

“So I gather,” I reply, looking over at the opposite wall, as if it’s suddenly become very interesting. (It hasn’t.)

“Look,”—he stands and starts walking towards me—“I’m sorry I ran off last night instead of just, well, _talking_, yeah?”

I keep pretending I’m fascinated by the wall, as if I don’t notice that he’s nearly in my personal space now. (I do.) “Alright.”

“I just don’t think you’ll ever understand, mate. There’s nothing for me back there but other people’s expectations and things beyond my control. I can’t live my own life there.”

“Of course you can live your own life,” I snap, returning my attention to him.

He chuckles sadly and shakes his head. “I knew you wouldn’t understand,” he says, and pats me on the shoulder.

I push his hand away. “Maybe I’d understand if you just explained it to me.”

“Would you?” he says, a sudden edge to his voice. “Because I don’t have a _rational explanation_ for you. And human emotions aren’t really your thing, so—”

“Oh, fuck off! I understand human emotions, Dev.” (Sort of.)

“If I stayed, I would have kept living with you.” He leans back against the kitchen counter and lowers his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And I couldn’t handle that. I just—I couldn’t.”

The kettle beeps at me before I can ask Dev, _“What the fuck?”_ so I pour the water into our mugs as I try to come up with a more intelligent response. But I can’t.

“And, yeah, that makes me a coward, or whatever, but you know what? I never claimed to be anything else,” he continues.

“You could have just said something,” I reply with my jaw set forward. “You could have said you didn’t want to live with me. You didn’t have to cross a fucking ocean to get away from me.”

“It wasn’t _just_ to get away from you, first of all.” He drops his hand. “But you would have demanded I explain myself to you, and I—I just couldn’t do that.”

I eye him scornfully. “Why not?”

He lets out a weary sigh. “Have you ever been in love?”

“What?”

“_Feelings_,” he says. “Have you ever had them?”

“Crowley, Dev, I have _feelings_—”

“_For someone_, I mean. Romantic feelings. Affectionate ones, directed at a person you like.”

“You’re the only person I actually _like_, so probably not.”

He looks at me with something like pity. I’m not sure if it’s for me, though. “Exactly,” he says.

“So, what, you fell in love with an American you met online or something, and came here to be with them?” I ask. “I don’t have to be in love to understand that, you condescending prick—”

“That’s not what happened.” He sounds exasperated but he seems like he’s trying not to smile. “I ran _away_ from my feelings, not towards them.”

We’re going in circles. I keep searching for the missing piece of the puzzle, but he’s holding it beyond my reach, mocking me.

“But the _pact_,” I say desperately. “I would have come with you. I would have run away from your feelings _with you_.”

He blinks at me a few times. “Are you really this thick? Is this for real? Are you taking the piss right now?”

“Would you stop acting like I’m such an idiot for not being able to read your fucking mind?” (It’s probably time to take the teabags out, but I don’t.)

“Look, Baz isn’t the only one who had a crush on his Watford roommate, if you get what I mean…” he says slowly, maintaining forceful eye contact.

I’m not sure who he’s talking about. I’m pretty sure the pixie was gay, or something, but I don’t remember who her roommate was. Also, I think she had a girlfriend. But I don’t know who else was—

“Oh,” I say when the realization hits me, like crashing into a brick wall. (_Is that why it felt so good when he touched my hair, or is that just what it feels like?_)

“You—You never said anything, though,” I add, staring down at the mugs of over-steeped tea on the counter next to me.

He laughs sarcastically. “Did you just block the night of the leaver’s ball from your memory entirely?” he says.

I didn’t. I remember that night. I think.

Someone spiked one of the punch bowls, and Dev suggested we bail out early because he was sick of Baz getting all the attention for the whole day.

_“Don’t you ever just want more?” _Dev asked me as we sat on the floor between our beds.

_“More than what?”_ I said, picking at a loose thread on my hand-me-down trousers.

_“More than what everyone else says you should have.”_ His eyes were wide and glistening in the moonlight from the window.

_“I dunno,”_ I said with a shrug. _“Then I’d have to make my own decisions.”_ He laughed, but I was only half-joking.

_“Sometimes it’s like nothing really makes sense the way everyone claims it does, you know?” _he said, looking at me in a way that made me feel truly _seen_ for the first time in ages.

I just nodded.

He leaned his head against my shoulder. _“I think maybe you’re the only thing that makes sense to me, some days.”_

_“Yeah,”_ I said quietly, and he placed his hand over mine.

I thought he was just trying to still it, to keep me from picking threads. He ran his thumb over my hand for a minute before lifting it to his mouth and pressing his lips against the back of it.

_“You’re so fucking drunk,”_ I laughed. And then I pulled my hand away, because it felt weird. I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like that I liked it.

“So you… You used to have, um… _romantic feelings_ for me?” I ask slowly, turning to face the mugs on the counter, instead of him. The tea is so dark it’s probably undrinkable at this point.

“Yes, bravo, well done—”

“Can you just give me a minute without being a dick about it?” I glare at him sideways, but he can tell I’m not serious.

“That doesn’t sound like me,” he says, smirking. His expression drops quickly. “Do you see why I couldn’t have you come with me, though?”

I curl my hands into fists against the counter. “I _don’t_ see why, actually,” I tell him. “If you… felt that way… why wouldn’t you want to be with me, then?”

“Because _being with you_ means something else to me,” he says. “I wouldn’t be able to move on if you were around and—”

“Why would you have to move on?”

“You’d rather I stay hung up on you? That I never meet anyone else, that I never find happiness and fulfilment?”

“No, I meant—” I clench my fists so tight that my nails dig into my palms. The air seems dry, suddenly. Like a Humdrum attack, but instead of sucking out all the magic, it feels like I’ve lost something much more vital. Something I can’t identify or classify or quantify.

“Why do you need anyone else?” I say. “Why can’t you just be happy with me?”

“Niall.” He’s giving me that look again, the one he gives me when I don’t understand something he thinks should be obvious. (I wish he wouldn’t.) “We want different things. _Incompatible_ things. You get that, right?”

“I don’t,” I say as I turn one of the mugs on the counter so the handles line up, even though I know I’ll have to dump the contents in a minute. “Why are the things incompatible? We like doing most of the same stuff. We like the same TV shows, the same video games—”

“I want to do more than watch Netflix and play Xbox with you,” he says with an incredulous laugh.

“Like what?”

“Like kiss you, for starters!”

“Okay,” I say after a moment of consideration.

“What?”

“We can do that, if you want.”

“_Crowley_,” he groans, dropping his head back. “You don’t have to kiss someone just because they want to. You realize that, don’t you?”

“Yes, obviously,” I say. I feel itchy on the inside and I want to crawl out of my skin. (I really wish we had some tea right now. It would make this less awkward.) (Or, at the very least, we’d have tea.) “I would only kiss someone if I wanted to.”

He nods. “Right. So don’t say you’ll kiss me just to make me come back to England—”

“That’s not—I’m saying I _want_ to, Dev!”

“You… What?”

I practically strain my neck turning away from him. “Never mind,” I mutter.

“Niall…” he says, and when I look back at him, he’s leaning in to scrutinize me. “What is it you actually want from me?”

_I want to make you laugh,_ I think._ I want to know what you’re thinking all the time. I want you to touch my hair again. I want to know if kissing you would be as nice as that. I want to feel like something makes sense, for once._

“I want _you_,” I reply, so quietly I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t hear me.

He frowns gently, like he feels sorry for me. “Not the same way, though.”

“You can’t just—You don’t know that!”

“No? Enlighten me, then. Because the way I see it—” He shuts up when I take hold of his wrist, and stares in surprise.

I’m sick of this. I’m sick of speaking with all the wrong words. I’m sick of trying to explain something that resists explanation.

I’m sick of the space between us. So I get rid of it.

I don’t think he knows how to react when my lips are suddenly on his. And I’m sure that _I_ don’t know how to react.

I always thought that when I eventually kissed somebody—_if_ I eventually kissed somebody—it would be premeditated. Carefully planned. Calculated. Orchestrated. Because that’s how I do things. Especially when those things involve someone getting in my personal space. But there’s no time for a Pro/Con list now. Not when every second separate from him feels like losing him across the ocean all over again.

The shock seems to wear off quickly, and he’s soon moving his lips with mine, taking the lead as though he knows what he’s doing. Which he does, apparently.

It’s weird and good and disgusting and exciting, and I want to figure out exactly how he’s doing that thing with his bottom lip so I can replicate it, but he runs his hand through my hair and I lose all control of my mental faculties. I make an involuntary and pathetic noise that gets muffled in his mouth, and I don’t even care.

I never knew something could feel this right.

_This is where you’re supposed to be,_ I think. _Next to me, with me, right up against me._

I have to pull back suddenly, as I’d forgotten to breathe, but he holds me off when I try to lean back in.

“Is this—Is this really what you want?” he asks, and I laugh deliriously.

“Fuck, yes!” I push my hand up into the back of his hair as well, because I think I can do that now. “More than anything.”

He lets me kiss him again, but only briefly. “I thought you were making us tea,” he says, smirking against my lips.

“Fuck off,” I say, and shut him up for a while.

* * *

“Good morning, darling.” Dev looks up at me with a sleepy smirk as I brush his hair back from his forehead, sitting up next to him. “How long have you been staring at me like a fucking creeper?”

“Not long,” I say, letting my hand linger in his hair, twisting it up in my fingers. I’m allowed to do this. To touch him just because I feel like it. Just because I like knowing he’s right here.

He turns towards me and nestles his head against the side of my waist. “It’s too early,” he whines, and throws his arm around my middle to hug me closer.

“I have to leave in an hour,” I say as I stroke the back of his t-shirt absently.

“I won’t let you,” he says, and I hum a laugh.

“That’s not what we agreed.”

“Yes, well, I only agreed under coercion. You used your wiles to seduce me into agreeing to your ridiculous plan.”

I snort. “Yes, my wiles. Of course.”

He lifts his head to look at me. “Don’t underestimate the power of sexy nerd glasses, mate.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not wearing them right now,” he adds, settling his head back against me, “otherwise I’d have to ravish you on the spot.”

“Well I’m about to get up and put them on, so I’d appreciate your continued restraint when I do,” I say, smoothing his hair back patronizingly.

“Wait,” he says, holding me tight when I try to move. He shifts to sit up next to me and takes my face in both hands. “You’re still going to come back, right? You haven’t changed your mind about… About being with me?”

“I go where you go. I told you.”

“But that’s supposed to go both ways, and I—”

“You do go both ways, Dev,” I say as seriously as I can.

He smiles reluctantly. “Well, it doesn’t seem like you’re very picky either,” he says, and pulls my face close until our lips almost brush.

“Oh, I’m _extremely_ picky,” I say, and then kiss him. (I think I’ve generally got the hang of it.) “It could only be you, you fucking prick.”

“Ooh, yeah, talk dirty to me.”

“Fuck you,” I laugh as he pushes his hands up into my hair.

“Oh, well, if you insist—”

I laugh again and hold him back. “I have a plane to catch,” I say, keeping him at arm’s length. “Also I’m saving myself, remember?”

“If that’s a marriage proposal, Niall, then I accept,” he says with a wolfish grin. “You always did look good in a suit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's stuck it out until the end! It means a lot to me! ❤️
> 
> I realize there are still a lot of loose ends and unanswered questions, and I may or may not attempt to tie some of those up--or at least show where they've come from--in the future. But I sort of like not knowing _everything_, so I'll probably keep some stuff _poetically unsaid_, or whatever. I do adore this version of the characters, though, and I'm interested in writing more about them, so we'll see....

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to know about my WIPs and other random, vaguely Carry On or fanfic-related things I like to talk about, you can find me on tumblr as [@f-ing-ruthless-baz](https://f-ing-ruthless-baz.tumblr.com)!


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